SANTA MARIA VALLEY - The Regional Water Quality Control Board is proposing new agriculture water runoff standards that will require farmers and ranchers to conduct water monitoring at the edge of their fields and report the findings to the board to ensure the new standards are being met.
"The agricultural industry believes that the standards that are being set by the Board are unachievevable using our current technology", says Richard Quandt, President of the Central Coast Grower-Shipper Association.
The proposed new standards would require the reduction of sediment and nutrient loads in the water runoff and the removal of all levels of toxicity, similar to rules that apply to sewage treatment.
Regional Water Quality Board staff maintain the new standards are needed to protect public water supplies, as well as fish and wildlife, from harmful chemicals used in agriculture.
The new regulations would apply to some of the most important produce growing regions in the entire country.
"Broccoli, cauliflower, celery", Quandt says, "probably 90 percent of the nation's supply is grown between here and Salinas along the Central Coast, its a big deal."
Farmers found in violation of the proposed new standards would face enforcement proceedings by the Board including fines and other penalties.
Added costs the ag industry says will have to be passed on to the consumer.
"They are going to have to hire water quality coordinators to be responsible for overseeing this entire regulatory program", Quandt says, "we are showing, based on surveys, the increase for at least a Tier 3 discharger would be somewhere around a $100 an acre which would increase the price of your food somewhere around ten percent."
Farmers say they've made huge gains in water runoff quality in recent years through new irrigation systems and more environmentally friendly chemicals and fertilizers being used.
They maintain the proposed new regulations are an unnecessary regulatory burden at a time when the ag industry, and the economy in general, can least afford it.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board chairman has ruled an alternative runoff rule proposed by California State University-Monterey Professor Marc Los Huertos, which is embraced by the ag industry, will not be allowed into the written public comment record when the Board meets next month.
The final public hearings on the new ag water runoff rules will be held on March 14th and 15th at an undetermined location in San Luis Obispo.
